What's the quality of child care centers located in lower-income neighborhoods? How does the demand for care in a neighborhood affect the quality of the centers? These are the questions at the heart of a study released in August by Policy Analysis of California Education (PACE).

PACE researchers studied 170 centers in communities in Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and San Francisco. Each community contained a significant concentration of lower-income families, but varied in terms of their economic vitality and demographics. Using measures of quality such as class size, child-staff ratios, staff turnover, and the director's educational status, overall quality for the 170 centers was equal to or better than centers included in previous national studies in middle class neighborhoods. This finding appears to be tied to California's policy of targeting subsidies to low income neighborhoods and state regulatory standards.

Although the quality of center-based care does not appear to decrease significantly in neighborhoods with higher poverty levels, it does erode in communities where demand is outpacing supply. This condition was most pronounced in predominantly Latino communities and working-class neighborhoods, both areas where family income is higher than that in lower-income neighborhoods. These findings suggest:

• Public policies designed to increase quality in a wider range of communities should be examined.

• Without further investment, quality may decrease in poor communities as more former welfare recipients go to work, increasing the demand for child care.

Source:
"Preschool and Child-Care Quality in California Neighborhoods: Policy Success, Remaining Gaps," B. Fuller and S. Holloway, PACE Working Paper Series 01-3, August 2001.

For more information:
contact PACE, University of California Berkeley and Stanford University, 3653 Tolman Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1670, call (510) 642-7223, or go on-line at pace.berkeley.edu.